Embodiments of the present invention relates generally to maintaining computer software deployed in the information processing systems of a large corporate enterprise and, more particularly, to methods and systems for automating application of patch updates to the virtualization software installed on the servers of the enterprise.
Most security incidents with computers today are caused by flaws in software referred to as vulnerabilities. The ultimate solution to software vulnerabilities is the application of patches. Software vendors generally release patches to fix vulnerabilities in their software products. If applied correctly, the patches remove vulnerabilities from computer systems.
Virtualization software, such as VMware ESX Server, is virtual machine software used for consolidating and partitioning servers in high-performance computing environments. Virtual machine software transforms physical computers into pools of logical computing resources. Physical servers can be partitioned into secure virtual machine servers. The operating systems and applications are isolated in these multiple virtual machine servers that reside on a single piece of hardware.
System resources are allocated dynamically to any operating system based on need, providing mainframe-class capacity utilization and control of server resources. Virtualization server software enables these server resources to be remotely managed, automatically provisioned, and standardized on a uniform platform. Advanced resource management controls allow information technology (IT) administrators to guarantee service levels across the enterprise. Virtualization server software runs directly on the system hardware to provide a secure, uniform platform for deploying, managing, and remotely controlling multiple virtual machines.